Consumption of Brazil Nuts Provides Cardiovascular Health Benefits

Abstract

The prevalence of chronic diseases, such as metabolic syndrome, obesity, dyslipidemia, type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2), cancer, and neurodegenerative and cardiovascular disorders have been increasing in the world population. However, cardiovascular diseases remain the leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide. According to the Barker's Theory (1993), hormonal, nutritional or environmental changes during critical periods of development such as gestation, lactation or adolescence may result in changes to the basic functions of the human body in childhood and "program" the progeny for the emergence of chronic diseases in the adult life, like DM2, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, intestinal dysbiosis, and hormonal and metabolic dysregulation. This phenomenon is known as "metabolic programming" or "developmental plasticity". 1,2 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License